HealthLeadersMedia.com - Quality Pillar News & Analysis/archive/TS/month/3/topic/WS_HLM2_QUA/Quality.html
HealthLeaders Media is a leading multi-platform media company dedicated to meeting the business information needs of healthcare executives and professionals.en-usCopyright 2015 HealthLeaders MediaTwo-Midnight Rule Enforcement Freeze Extension Pendinghttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314838
<p>Medicare's standard for delineating outpatient vs. inpatient status at hospitals won't be in full force until the end of September if a bill to repeal the sustainable growth rate formula is passed next month.</p>Tue, 31 Mar 2015 12:09:00 GMTRevenue Cycle Exchange: 3 Big Ideashttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314837
<p>Nearly two dozen revenue cycle executives, invited by HealthLeaders Media, shared insights on a wide range of hospital and health system billing and collection issues including CDI, data integrity, and the role of the patient.</p>Tue, 31 Mar 2015 12:05:00 GMTPolice search for armed prisoner who escaped Inova Fairfax Hospitalhttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314828
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
<p>Fairfax County Police say an armed prisoner who escaped custody at Inova Fairfax Hospital Tuesday morning may be with his girlfriend. Wossen Assaye, 42, was arrested by federal authorities last week for a series of bank robberies in Northern Virginia. Assaye allegedly committed the robberies while on a bike. While being held at the Alexandria City Jail, Assaye attempted to harm himself and was taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital for medical treatment. Police say a private security company was hired to guard him at the hospital. At about 3 a.m. Tuesday, Assaye overpowered the guard, taking the security officer's weapon.</p>Tue, 31 Mar 2015 11:40:00 GMTMedicare spent $4.5 billion on new hepatitis C drugs last yearhttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314827
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
<p>Medicare spent $4.5 billion last year on new, pricey medications that cure the liver disease hepatitis C &mdash; more than 15 times what it spent the year before on older treatments for the disease, previously undisclosed federal data shows. The extraordinary outlays for these breakthrough drugs, which can cost $1,000 a day or more, will be borne largely by federal taxpayers, who pay for most of Medicare's prescription drug program. But the expenditures will also mean higher deductibles and maximum out-of-pocket costs for many of the program's 39 million seniors and disabled enrollees, who pay a smaller share of its cost, experts and federal officials said.</p>Tue, 31 Mar 2015 11:38:00 GMTMaryland, D.C. rank among worst states for doctorshttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314826
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
<p>Maryland ranked near the bottom of the list &mdash; No. 46 &mdash; on WalletHub's list of the best states for doctors. D.C. ranked No. 40 and Virginia came in near the middle of the pack at No. 19. Dr. Emily Dow, chief medical officer of the Family Health Centers and professor at University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine, says it's important for states to be attractive to doctors so they can bring in talented physicians and achieve quality care for patients. Still, every state should be afforded quality care, she says.</p>Tue, 31 Mar 2015 11:37:00 GMTUS cancer incidence, mortality largely stable or decreasinghttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314824
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
The rate of people being diagnosed or killed by cancer in the U.S. is stable or decreasing for men and women, according to a new report. "For the main cancers, it's really pretty much good news, incidence and mortality is decreasing," said Recinda Sherman, an author of the new report from the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR) in Springfield, Illinois. A highlight of the report is that for the first time it breaks breast cancer into specific groups based on how it responds to hormones, said Ahmedin Jemal, vice president of surveillance and health service research at the American Cancer Society (ACS).Tue, 31 Mar 2015 11:34:00 GMTSurvey: 97% of patients OK docs' using technology during a visithttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314823
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
<p>A new survey conducted by voice recognition software company Nuance Communications shows that patients don't have a problem with their doctors using technology during visits, as long as technology doesn't get in the way of a meaningful interaction with their physician. Nuance surveyed 3,000 patients in three countries: the United States, the UK and Germany. They found that 97 percent of patients approved of their doctor using technology (including desktop computers and mobile devices) during a consultation, and an additional 58 percent said technology positively impacts their overall experience, especially when it's &quot;used collaboratively to educate or explain.&quot;</p>Tue, 31 Mar 2015 11:32:00 GMTPatients bounce back faster from surgery with hospitals' new protocolhttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314822
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
<p>Hospitals are starting to abandon the time-honored drill for surgery patients&mdash; including fasting, heavy IV fluids, powerful post-op narcotics and bed rest&mdash;amid growing evidence that the lack of nutrients, fluid overload and drug side effects can do more harm than good. Instead, they are turning to &quot;enhanced recovery&quot; protocols that are easier on patients, help them get better faster with fewer infections and other complications and reduce health-care costs. The changes, pioneered in Europe over the past 15 years, now are being adopted more widely in the U.S. Though the evidence is strongest in colorectal surgery, the approach is being used with an increasing range of procedures including hip fracture and joint replacements and surgeries for bladder, pancreas, liver and breast cancer. [Subscription Required]</p>Tue, 31 Mar 2015 11:31:00 GMTAnglo Saxon remedy kills hospital superbug MRSAhttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314821
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
So goes a thousand-year-old Anglo Saxon recipe to vanquish a stye, an infected eyelash follicle. The medieval medics might have been on to something. A modern-day recreation of this remedy seems to alleviate infections caused by the bacteria that are usually responsible for styes. The work might ultimately help create drugs for hard-to-treat skin infections. The project was born when Freya Harrison, a microbiologist at the University of Nottingham, UK, got talking to Christina Lee, an Anglo Saxon scholar. They decided to test a recipe from an Old English medical compendium called Bald's Leechbook, housed in the British Library.Tue, 31 Mar 2015 11:28:00 GMTGroup of Chicago hospitals reports new way to battle a deadly 'superbug'http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314796
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
<p>With painstaking effort, a group of Chicago hospitals has managed to cut by half the number of infections caused by an especially deadly type of superbug. Now U.S. health officials want that kind of campaign to go national. The White House on Friday told the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slash rates of infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria by 2020 as part of a plan to prevent patient deaths and curb overuse of antibiotics administered to humans and animals. The CDC is pointing to the success of the Chicago Prevention Epicenter, one of five such CDC-funded programs nationally that coordinate research between local scientists and public health officials.</p>Mon, 30 Mar 2015 11:49:00 GMTHealth beat: Cancer drug costs are an ill lacking a curehttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314790
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
Dr. Vincent Rajkumar has little incentive to care about the skyrocketing cost of cancer drugs. Prescribing them like a drunken sailor won't change his Mayo Clinic salary. Warning patients about sticker prices won't change their demand for drugs that offer hope of survival. But after seeing cancer drug costs escalate 10- to 20-fold in the last 15 years, the hematologist decided enough is enough. Calling it a "moral obligation," Rajkumar and a Houston colleague wrote an article in Mayo Clinic Proceedings challenging the rising costs and calling out drug companies for practices that extend patents and inflate profits.Mon, 30 Mar 2015 11:35:00 GMTFace transplants approved for UW Medical Centerhttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314787
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
<p>Officials at the University of Washington Medical Center soon will begin performing face transplants, hand transplants and more after the hospital received federal approval this week to conduct the life-altering operations. The United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, added the UW Medical Center Friday to a list of 20 hospitals nationwide authorized to perform so-called vascularized composite allograft (VCA) transplants. That's a newly defined category of organ transplant that includes body parts composed of several kinds of tissue, with working blood supplies, that can be donated as a single unit from one person to another.</p>Mon, 30 Mar 2015 11:30:00 GMTSlideshow: HIT Investments Target Population Health Managementhttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314763
<p>Four senior healthcare leaders describe the health information technology infrastructure investments they've made to better manage population health.</p>Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:58:00 GMT'Pay Attention to How Doctors Talk'http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314762
<p>&quot;If you want to understand the culture of medicine, you should pay attention to how doctors and other health professionals talk,&quot; says Brian Goldman, MD. He was interviewed by <em>MedPage Today</em> about his reasons for dissecting the way healthcare professionals speak to each other.</p>Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:49:00 GMTUS House passes bipartisan bill to fix Medicare doctor paymentshttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314761
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
<p>The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a bill to permanently repair the formula for reimbursing Medicare physicians, marking a rare bipartisan achievement and sending the issue next to the Senate. The measure drafted and driven forward by Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi would fix a long-standing problem with how Medicare pays doctors. It would also make adjustments to the health program for seniors. The House vote was 392-37. The Senate may not act until it returns from a two-week recess that starts this weekend. Some senators in both parties had concerns about the bill, but it also had strong support.</p>Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:40:00 GMTWhite House crafts first-ever plan to fight superbugshttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314759
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
The White House is due to issue an ambitious plan to slow the growing and deadly problem of antibiotic resistance over the next five years, one that requires massive investments and policy changes from a broad array of U.S. government health agencies, according to a copy of the report reviewed by Reuters. The 60-page report is the first ever to tackle antibiotic resistance so broadly. It was compiled by a government task force led by the administration's top officials for health, agriculture and defense. A White House official confirmed that it would release the plan on Friday.Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:36:00 GMTEbola not mutating into 'supervirus,' study findshttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314758
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
<p>The Ebola virus that is causing the current outbreak in West Africa is not mutating as quickly as earlier reports had suggested, a new study finds. This finding helps allay fears that the virus could change into a more infectious or deadly form, the researchers said. In the study, published online today (March 26) in the journal Science, researchers compared virus samples from people in Africa who became infected with Ebola up to nine months apart. They found that the viruses' genetic sequences were almost identical, meaning that the virus had undergone relatively few mutations -- or changes in the genetic sequence -- over that time period, the researchers said</p>Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:35:00 GMTMaker of medical scopes linked to 'superbug' outbreaks issues new cleaning instructionshttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314757
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
<p>The maker of medical scopes that have been linked to two recent &quot;superbug&quot; outbreaks at California hospitals has issued new cleaning instructions for the devices amid scrutiny from regulators, lawmakers and medical professionals. Olympus America sent the new guidelines to U.S. hospitals on Thursday, recommending that its customers begin using them as soon as possible. The updated guidelines call for using a smaller cleaning brush and additional flushing steps to remove debris and disinfect the scope's crevices and hinges. Olympus plans to send the new brush to hospital customers by May 8.</p>Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:33:00 GMTTN state hospitals stand to benefit from Congressional compromisehttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314755
<p><advertisement></advertisement></p>
<p>The state of Tennessee stands to receive more than $530 million in federal funding over the next 10 years to help cover costs of treating uninsured patients. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, which includes a compromise that will guarantee disproportionate share hospital allotments totaling more than $530 million over the next 10 years to help hospitals and community health centers in Tennessee recoup expenses from treating patients who cannot afford to pay. Tennessee is the only state in the nation that does not receive DSH allotments automatically. Under the Act, hospitals in Tennessee will receive $53.1 million in annual DSH payments.</p>Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:30:00 GMTDoctors, Stop Sticking Your Patients So Oftenhttp://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content_redirect.cfm?content_id=314496
<p>UCSF physicians launch national 'Think Twice, Stick Once' campaign to decrease unnecessary blood draws. Patients dislike blood tests and may even be harmed.</p>Thu, 19 Mar 2015 16:21:00 GMT